HC Deb 20 February 1995 vol 255 cc5-6
4. Mr. Ronnie Campbell

To ask the Secretary of State for Social Security what would be the cost to the Child Support Agency of implementing an income disregard for parents with care to the value of (a) £5, (b) £8 and (c) £10.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Alistair Burt)

The estimated long-run costs of a £5, £8 or £10 maintenance disregard for parents with care in receipt of income support are approximately £110 million, £165 million and £205 million.

Mr. Ronnie Campbell

I agree with the Minister that, obviously, parents without care should pay for their children, but one of the problems that has arisen in the past year or so is that parents who remarry and have another family are penalised. The father is penalised in the sense that he has to pay for the children from his first family and his second family. [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right."] No, Conservative Members are wrong. I repeat that the father is being penalised twice. He is being penalised for the children from his first marriage and again for children from his second family, if he has a second family.

Mr. Burt

I am not quite sure how the disregard may affect that situation. Among Conservative Members and, by general agreement, around the country, the idea that a man should remain responsible for his first family, no matter what his subsequent circumstances are, is very important. The point of the disregard is to give some recognition to the parent with care in the maintenance being received. We believe that that point is much better dealt with by the Government's proposed maintenance credit, which will give an incentive to return to work and will certainly ensure that a father in those circumstances fully realises the impact of the money that he is paying in maintenance.

Mrs. Roe

Does my hon. Friend agree that the maintenance disregard proposed by the Labour party would create unfairness and make it less worth while for the lone mother to return to work? Does he also agree that if the Labour party supports a disregard, it should say how it would pay for it?

Mr. Burt

My hon. Friend is quite right. The figures that I gave showed just how expensive a maintenance disregard would be. We do not believe that it would achieve the object wished for by the Opposition. It would certainly create a higher barrier for those parents with care who wanted to return to work. As we know from all our surveys that most lone parents want to go back to work, we believe that a maintenance disregard with an incentive to return to work would be rather better than providing an incentive for not returning to work at all.

Mr. Dewar

On the costs of disregard, the Minister will remember that, throughout 1994, I was abused by him and the Secretary of State for profligacy on the ground that a £10 disregard would cost £340 million. Does he remember the way in which that figure dropped by May 1994 to £290 million? It is now £205 million. Will he please explain those discrepancies and apologise for some of the abuse that I received?

Mr. Burt

I cannot imagine either myself or my right hon. Friend abusing the hon. Gentleman on that point; it is not in our nature to do so. The changes in costs result from two matters in particular: first, we have been able to conduct greater sampling and, secondly, I am pleased to report that fewer lone parents are claiming income support, which most hon. Members should find quite encouraging.